- Hi, my name is James Han.
I'm an entrepreneur and business coach.
Many people say, "I can listen
and understand English but can't speak."
And some others say, "I can read and write
but have no confidence in speaking and listening."
Do you have these problems too?
Then watch this video till the end.
I'm going to share with you a four-step practice
that really helped me improve my listening,
speaking, and even pronunciation
to advanced level in two months.
You can do this at home yourself, and free.
Before we start the practice,
we need to select the right study material.
I'd like to recommend two materials.
One is Podcast.
I chose one from an organization called C.C.L,
Center for Creative Leadership.
You can find the link down below.
Because the content is mainly about leadership
and management, which I'm interested in,
and the speaker's pronunciation is very clear
and the speed is not too fast and not too slow,
and the audio is only three to four minutes long,
so that's very good for me to keep focused.
And you can download the audio files
and the transcripts from the site.
Of course, you can choose any podcast you like.
And another material I'd like to recommend
is TV show or movie.
I prefer dramas and sitcoms because it's fun
and you can learn from it real-life situational English.
Now let's dive into the four-step practice.
Step One, Listening.
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Listen to the audio
from the beginning to the end several times,
so you can familiarize yourself
with the content, speed, pronunciation, et cetera.
You may listen to it sentence by sentence.
Step Two, Translation.
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Translate this transcript into your language,
so you can understand it.
And after that, read it out loud.
This will be a good warming up for the next step.
Step Three, Shadowing.
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This is the main part of this practice.
Shadowing means you will become the speaker's shadow,
meaning, you will copy what the speaker says
in exactly the same way.
Let me show you how to do it.
We'll do this with a transcript.
Later, we'll do this without transcript.
- Two Different executives- - Two different executives
lose their jobs.
- [Announcer] One sends out-
- One sends out thousands of resumes.
- Receives little- - Receives little response.
- And is angry- - And is angry and bitter
- The other returns- - The other returns to school.
- Changes- - Changes careers
and creates a new professional life.
- Why is one- - Why is one executive
stuck in an unhealthy pattern?
- While the other- - While the other
is able to adapt?
Do you get it?
Please remember these:
One, start following him as soon as you hear,
Two, copy everything he does.
So if he pause, you pause.
And if he goes up, you go up.
This will improve your pronunciation,
intonation, accent, rhythm, and so on.
And Three, do not murmur like this (murmurs).
Don't do this, but do it out loud.
Four, do this shadowing sentence by sentence,
and then entire transcript.
With this shadowing technique,
you can improve your listening skills really fast
because you need to pay 100% of your attention to listening
in order to listen and speak almost at the same time.
And also, you can practice many more times
than writing English words and sentences
on your note to memorize them
because saying is much faster than writing,
and this will help your memory last longer.
And most importantly, this will open your mouth
to speak English.
Once you get used to this with transcript,
do this without transcript, okay?
And then you may ask,
"How many times should I do this then?"
Please do this until you can shadow smoothly
from the beginning to the end,
so you can almost memorize this whole transcript
by repetition.
Finally, Step Four, Application.
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Create as many question and answers as you can
with transcript, and do some role plays.
For example, you may ask something like this:
"Hey James, I lost my job.
I sent out thousands of resumes,
but received little response.
What should I do?"
And you may answer something like this:
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear.
How about returning to school,
changing your career, and starting a new professional life?"
Now you know what to do, let me ask you three things.
Number One, do this every day.
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At least one hour a day, complete one transcript in a week.
If possible, set a time for this practice every day,
so make it a new habit.
Repetition is the father of learning.
Number Two, continue working hard.
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You will start to see the improvement in one month.
This one transcript has 360 words.
If you complete one transcript every week,
you can speak 1,440 words in one month,
and more than 2,500 words in two months.
I believe that is enough for you to speak with anyone
about almost any topic.
So you must commit, follow through,
and grab that improvement,
so you can have a sense of accomplishment,
confidence, and momentum to keep going.
Number Three, start today.
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Your upgraded English
will bring you more and more great opportunities
to your business and life.
Please send me your comments below,
I'd love to hear from you.
And if you liked this video,
make sure to click on the button, Like, Subscribe,
and hit the bell, so you can be notified
when I post my next video.
Thank you very much. See you next week.